An interactive exhibit exploring the role of museums, curators, and the general public in validating what is and what is not design, Museum as Plinth: Take One/Leave One stages a “take and leave” shelf of objects in the MAD lobby. Over the course of a weekend, museum visitors are invited to take an object and replace it with one of their own— simple ephemera from their pockets or a special piece that they brought with them. Each object on the shelf is given a sticker "From the Collection of the MAD Museum" and, in effect, admitted to the museum's collection. The concepts of exchange, value, and status come into play. Crafting an evolving collection, to be documented in an online catalogue and thematic stories published on the day’s blog and social media outlets, Museum as Plinth: Take One/Leave One continues the debate of hierarchies and value within the museum context.

Curator and historian Lowery Stokes Sims leads an hour-long public discussion in the gallery-situated studio of Maria Hupfield, currently featured as an artist-in-residence in Cycle 2 of Studio Views: Craft in the Expanded Field.

Receiving critical feedback from trusted peers and professionals is essential to any artist’s studio practice. For this program, historian and author Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts will lead an hour-long public discussion in the gallery-situated studio of Xenobia Bailey, currently featured as an artist-in-residence in Cycle 2 of Studio Views: Craft in the Expanded Field.

Learn how to create open-faced molds with artist-in-residence Mimi Bai. Visitors will imprint a variety of textiles and patterns into clay using their fingers and simple clay tools, and then learn how to mix and pour plaster to cast their own creations.